Bought this motherboard mainly because it is one of the best for building a hackintosh, and I wanted to leave that option open. First impressions were quite good. The board came with a rather nice I/O back plate, which has padding and a black finish on the back. The board looks well put together, but the connectors feel a little bit on the cheap side, particularly the SATA connectors. Additionally, the board only has one system fan header, (and one CPU fan header). Having said that, the overall first impression was of a good quality board.
The installation went smoothly, but the USB ports had a problem that showed up as soon as the system posted for the first time. Only 2 out of the 6 USB ports worked (one from each bank of USB 3.0 ports). I tried to troubleshoot the issue with the help of Gigabyte support, but in the end nothing solved the problem and I have to RMA the board.
Apart from the USB issue, everything else worked just fine, and Gigabyte support was prompt and helpful, so I have requested a replacement in the hopes that it will be okay.
UPDATE:
I received a replacement Z97N-WIFI board, and it had the same issue. At this point I was suspecting that perhaps it was another component that was causing the fault, so I ordered a ASUS Maximus VII Impact to test the rest of the components, and everything is working just fine with that board.
| Brand | Gigabyte |
|---|---|
| Product Dimensions | 22.86 x 10.16 x 20.32 cm; 1.27 Kilograms |
| Batteries | 1 Lithium Ion batteries required. |
| Item model number | GA-Z97N-WIFI |
| Manufacturer | Gigabyte |
| Series | GA-Z97N-WIFI |
| Form Factor | Mini ITX |
| Processor Type | AMD Ryzen 7 |
| Processor Socket | Socket H3 (LGA 1150) |
| Processor Count | 1 |
| Memory Technology | DDR3 |
| Computer Memory Type | DDR3 SDRAM |
| Maximum Memory Supported | 16 GB |
| Memory Clock Speed | 1600 MHz |
| Graphics Card Interface | PCI Express |
| Connectivity Type | Bluetooth |
| Wireless Type | 802.11n, 802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11g |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 2 |
| Number of HDMI Ports | 2 |
| Number of Ethernet Ports | 2 |
| Are Batteries Included | No |
| Lithium Battery Packaging | Batteries packed with equipment |
| Lithium Battery Weight | 5 Grams |
| Item Weight | 1.27 kg |
| Guaranteed software updates until | unknown |
